Introduction:
One of the greatest assets a person can have is an established business that can put large sums of money back into the business, a business that can sustain itself and its employees. For a business to grow there are steps and principles (of which I am not going to discuss in this blogpost) to follow, for example, John C Maxwell in his book “21 irrefutable laws of leadership” says that “your business will only grow up to your ability to lead”, which is true, you do need to have leadership skills to own a big corporate, so in this blog post will be discussing why is that most businesses in Soshanguve don’t grow. Whatever I will be discussing in this blog post are the things I have observed around my community in Soshanguve, these are the things that I have seen that seem to hinder these businesses to grow.
I believe Soshanguve has the potential to grow and become very developed, I believe my hometown can become a central business district, I believe that we can become one of the richest neighbourhoods in South Africa, but we just need to change our thinking, we need to change how we do things, we need to be intentional about building our businesses and our community. In Soshanguve I have seen businesses that are:
Mostly ran without a plan or vision about the future:
One wise man once said, ‘if you have no plan, then you planning to fail’, this is true because in the beginning phase of the business and throughout the business life cycle, you are supposed first to know why you started the business, what is the end goal, what do you want to achieve within a short space of time, how do you want to go about with tasks and so on. All these things require you to have a proper plan and time to follow. What I’ve noticed about people from Soshanguve when they start their business, is that most people start businesses because for these 3 reasons:
- They start businesses because of envy and jealousy:
Back when I was young, I once sold scones, muffins, and also hake fish, I would sell on weekends and at school, 3 weeks after starting my own business my neighbour decided to start her own, selling the same stuff I was selling, then when I stopped selling because of my schoolwork she also stopped and when I would start again, she would also start. It was almost like my neighbour’s business was only existing to make it difficult for me to prosper.
Jealousy shouldn’t be the factor in starting a business, your business will never and can never work, businesses are never built or sustained by jealousy, when starting it you need to be sober-minded and ready. You need to know what purpose will your business be serving, you must be sure of what you want to achieve with your business, you need to carefully plan things out, you need to have short-, medium- and long-term goals. You also need strategies and steps to get to your goals.
- They start a business only to survive:
Most people in Soshanguve start their businesses only to survive and feed their families. The time I was selling scones, muffins and fish was to generate pocket money so I may buy something nice things at school, I was making money to spend it, the concept of saving money for me was farfetched, in my mind, it never existed. This was because, coming from a poor background I knew nothing about financial literacy, most poor family never teach their child about finances because they know nothing about them, so I never knew how money works and how to invest it. My hard-earned cash was for me to buy more and more liabilities.
This is the state of most businesses in Soshanguve, people are starting a business to buy more expensive stuff. We are caught up in a cycle of selling and buying more and more liabilities.
Strikes, robbery, and lootings:
One of the greatest threads to Soshanguve’s business is looting and robbery. During protests and strikes businesses suffer a great loss since people loot and rob stores, for example back in 2018 Bathu Plaza and Soshanguve Plaza had a clothing shop called DUNS which was moved away from both places because it was constantly looted and robbed and vandalized, in these 2 areas DUNS was probably losing large sums of money as they had to consistently repair their store only for it to be vandalized again, today in both Bathu Plaza and Sosh Plaza there is no DUNS store. From my childhood, I’ve seen businesses robbed, vandalized, and even burnt. So, it’s very difficult to run a business in a place where crime is high.
The looting and robbing of stores in Soshanguve are cancers that are spreading very fast within the community. Young boys are involved in gangs that are destroying our infrastructure and robbing our businesses. Unless we as Sosh-people change our ways shall we lose many businesses and investors. Soshanguve can never be as developed as it is supposed until we fight this cancer that is spreading like wildfire.
Poor business leadership skills:
Everything rises and fall because of leadership, where there is a lack of good leadership anarchy prevails. The ability to lead is very important for your business because your business can never rise or grow above your leadership capability. So there more you improve as a leader and in your strength to lead, the more will your business flourish.
Dirty and unclean working conditions:
Marabastad is one of the dirtiest business sites I had ever seen, this is caused by people littering all over, and however they please, this makes the place very dirty and smelly. The air you breathe in there is not healthy, the place smells exactly like a dumping site, in the long run working or selling in such a place won’t be good for one’s health. Something needs to change, our business needs to operate in a clean place, the reason why we go to shops like Shoprite etc is that firstly the place is always clean, big companies are very clean, even on manufacturing plants where you would expect dirt lying around
Fights and lack of unity within the organization
An organization needs its people united for it to march forward and be successful. An organization divided against itself cannot stand, it will always crumble and fall since there is no unity and trust, nothing can work without trust and unity. Everything in this world solemnly depends on trust and unity for it to thrive and survive, for example, in a marriage where there is no unity and trust between the wife and husband are accusations and fights, one party always accusing another of different things like cheating and so on, such marriages always collapse, they do not last long. For a nation to function it needs trust amongst its people.
- My friend and his business partner:
I have another friend of mine who had a business with someone he did not trust, he and his partner were always fighting for everything and about everything, starting from the money which is missing, to how he managed things and how he is always making wrong decisions, my friend was not in favour with whatever the guy was doing, long story short their business never stood the test of time, they separated as business partners and their business was done for. So it’s really important to work with someone you trust and are united with, unity and trust are necessary for business success.
In conclusion:
The development of our community Soshanguve depends on us the resident, we need to be radical about developing our community as people and residents of Sosha, no one will help us to develop ourselves and our community, our political parties have shown us that they are unreliable and will not come for our help, it is us the people of Sosha who can make the difference in our community, we can make Soshanguve great and attractive for people to want to live in the community and investors to want to spend in our development and tourist to want to visit us.
Please comment below what do you think about this issue addressed above, if you feel like there is something left unsaid, you can comment on it in the comment section